A Bibliometric Analysis of Product-Service Systems’ Design Methodologies: Potential Root-Cause Identification of PSS’ Failures

Abstract

Product-service system (PSS) innovation is acknowledged as a promising way to achieve sustainability through better exploitation of given resources. Nevertheless, PSS implementation is also described as increasing failure risk for companies. Despite that authors have identified paradoxical situations as a source of failure while implementing PSS, few researches have focused on understanding the origin of these paradoxes. In this review, we aim at understanding how methodologies cope with the challenges of designing PSS throughout the complete company perimeter as well as how to manage interactions within this perimeter to avoid potential paradoxes and thus failure. To do so, we will rely on the business model innovation literature and, more specifically, the business model canvas to define and discretize the company perimeter. As for the interactions and their imbrication regarding paradoxes appearance, we will refer to Putnam et al. theory to gain deeper understanding of paradoxes-appearance mechanism. Our bibliometric strategy brought us to analyze 14 international articles via our graph, enabling us to highlight that some poles’ interactions during design are partly unaddressed, resulting potentially in the creation of tension sources and therefore potential paradoxes and ultimately implementation failure. Considering this, future research works could focus on defining all significant interactions to consider while designing a PSS as well as the typology of answers to engage while facing tensions. In that respect, these works could provide actionable solutions to lower PSS implementation-failure risk, thus benefiting those who wish to achieve better sustainability through PSS.

Product-Services for a Resource-Efficient and Circular Economy: An Updated Review

“…Ref. [21] describes a number of success factors in the design of PSSs, such as the deployment of a service within a manufacturer that already intervened and managed similar activities, the creation of synergies between resources and activities, and the reduction of costs.…”

“…Still, this interpretation does not eliminate or dismiss environmental concerns. In fact, one of the main distinctive features of PSS is that they present a way to address the triple bottom line and respond simultaneously to economic, social, and environmental issues [21,22]. Their promise to create significant positive or reduce negative impacts on the environment and society is what justifies its frequent framing as a strategy for CE [2].…”

A Review of Service Design Pedagogy to Identify Potential Added Value to Product Innovation in Higher Education

“…Much of the research in recent years has focused on sustainability in product service systems (PSS), such as product-service system innovation and product-service systems design methodology [107,108]. There are many research studies that argue that productservice systems represent a promising approach to sustainability [109,110].…”

Modelos de negocio y su influencia en el sector de servicios. Revisión de literatura

“…Dentro del mercado competitivo las empresas han pretendido innovar en sistemas de productos y servicios, debido a su versatilidad en la creación de modelos de negocio innovadores y sostenibles (Foss & Saebi, 2018). No obstante, la implementación de estas unidades económicas se ha clasificado como un riesgo al fracaso para las organizaciones (Agher et al, 2021). Uno de los riesgos que puede padecer las empresas, es una aplicación incorrecta de las metodologías en los modelos de negocio.…”